Leadership

Ananth Karthik S

Co-founder & Managing Director

Ananth Karthik S is co-founder and Managing Director of Lenor Ventures. He sets the technology direction across every product and service line, and leads research and development, client relationships and the product divisions. Since the company was incorporated in 2024, he has taken it from a single sentiment tool to a growing portfolio of products across health, safety, sport and brand intelligence, and leads each one from a working prototype into real-world use: in clinics, in clinical research and on the platforms where brands are discussed. At Tata Consultancy Services, as a programme manager for nearly eight years, he led documentation programmes for clients, mentored several teams and built up the company’s technical publication services in the hi-tech vertical, introducing animation and illustration into user documentation. As India head of information services at Citec Engineering, he set up the operation from scratch and worked with counterparts overseas. At Cognizant he led the Chennai content business with full responsibility for profit and loss, utilisation and revenue: he grew the team by half, introduced Lean Sigma practices, built a cross-functional business development team and began selling services as complete solution packages.

In 2016 he turned entrepreneur as Chief Information Officer of RV Matrix Software Technologies in Chennai, building software for clients across sectors. During the Covid-19 pandemic his team worked around the clock for two weeks to release a Covid-19 care app for monitoring, as an unpaid service to the country. He has also built AI models that answer questions from the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible and the Quran, to help people understand each other and to promote peace and coexistence rather than any one faith.

His foundations are in engineering: a degree in mechanical engineering from Sathyabama University, an MTech from BITS Pilani, and early years at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited designing test beds for aeronautical engines.

He runs Lenor Ventures as a group of focused businesses on one shared base: specialists picked for each problem, every product labelled by its real stage, and each new build strengthening the others. Away from work he is a wildlife photographer and, in his own word, a nemophilist.

• Technology direction
• Research and development
• AI and emerging technologies
• Product strategy
• Client relationships

Manav Gupta

Co-founder & Director

Manav Gupta is co-founder and Director of Lenor Ventures. He runs operations, marketing, business development and staffing across the company, and leads its digital growth practice, Writernical, the digital growth brand of Lenor Ventures. He is also the company’s Grievance Officer for personal data.

He founded Writernical in 2019 and has built it into a growth practice for business-to-business and consumer companies. Under his leadership the team took an AI chatbot platform’s ads, search, website and sales material from four separate suppliers into one engagement, and sign-ups tripled within four months. It rebuilt the website of a three-decade IT systems integrator, and enterprise enquiries rose by 65%. For a managed office space operator, running content, social and search as one function tripled website traffic, and AI assistants now cite the brand in 60% of the questions tracked in its segment. For a digital agency selling into three countries, copy written for each market lifted qualified leads by 38% in the United States, 22% in the United Kingdom and 41% in Australia.

He is a hands-on builder with AI. He has built Lenor’s AI-as-a-Service tools, including VideoGen, the company’s AI video tool, which keeps every character, place and look consistent across a whole series and has produced a 25-minute show for a state government. He uses AI-assisted coding, often called vibe coding, to ship working software fast, such as an ERP that runs an in-house bakery production unit, and he writes for founders about AI tools, testing them on real briefs rather than on their claims.

An engineer by training, he holds a B.Tech with Honours in Mechatronics, Robotics and Automation Engineering from SASTRA University and began his career as a graduate engineer at Sundaram Clayton Limited in Chennai, working with international clients. Several years of preparing for the UPSC Civil Services examination gave him a lasting grounding in economics, public policy and governance, which shapes how Lenor works with government programmes and public health.

He builds the processes that let a group of businesses grow without losing discipline: products, services and staffing on one operating rhythm. He is based in Chennai, and away from work he plays and creates music.

• Business development
• Growth marketing
• Growth strategy
• Digital marketing
• Operations
• Staffing
• Partnerships